Wednesday August 2, 2023
Good morning beloved reader,
This morning I want to share with you the following writing about spiritual principles, to support, encourage, and empower you to connect with your own inner-authority and inner-divinity; and to stand strong in your own sovereignty.
And of course I’m simultaneously teaching what I most need to learn🥰
As we re-claim the Divine Feminine energies in this way, we add our single drop to the oceanic movement of awakening that is needed for us to fall back in love with our sacred planet and heal our relationship with Mother Earth, with the ultimate goal of ending global climate change.
You may read more about this movement in the beautiful book, SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY: The Cry of the Earth, an amazing anthology of voices including Joanna Macy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Wendell Berry, Sandra Ingerman, and edited by the Sufi mystic, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. As described on Amazon, “The first edition of this book fostered the emergence of the "Spiritual Ecology Movement," which recognizes the need for a spiritual response to our present ecological crisis.”
Which brings me to the spiritual principle of understanding ego and victim identity.
Through gaining awareness of when we may be identified with our ego, we gain freedom and cessation of suffering. And by each of us easing suffering within ourselves, this ripples out to all of those we love and into the communities in which we participate.
Eckhart Tolle’s work provides great insight into ego identification. Also, without him ever saying so, he’s the definition of “interfaith:” he’s more interested in spiritual principles versus ego identification with any particular religion. (And yes, I’m aware of the irony here in my own ego identification with interfaith😉😎)
Ecky describes how the ego often identifies with things like physical appearance, the body, what our ‘exterior’ looks like. Ego also identifies with possessions: “I feel a stronger sense of self because I have a Lamborghini and you only have a VW.”
The ego is also active in social situations where there is superiority: ego identifications seek superiority.
Ego is involved when we’re identified with possessions, looks, achieving, social position, knowledge, being intellectual or highly educated, who our ancestors are, nobility… Superiority is always implied.
“Whenever you feel inferior or superior, that’s the ego in you.”
The ego is always looking for something. Resentment, grievances, anger… this also gives it a sense of superiority. By being angry at others, it’s implied that you’re superior to others you’re angry at.
This quote from Ecky in particular, resonated deeply with me:
“If unjust things were done to you, perpetrated by other humans,
you automatically become morally superior.
This (being a victim) becomes your ego identity.
And every egoic identity is a form of delusion.”
This is not to take away from any situation where we may have actually been a victim. Of course that can be a reality too.
But what he’s shining the light on is the propensity towards how we can make ‘being a victim’ a part of our egoic identity. And how this does not serve us, but simply adds to our suffering, which then adds to the suffering of the world.
Ego is always looking for something to add to its sense of identity.
“Ego looks for a stronger sense of identity because it always feels, ‘I’m not enough.’”
And being a victim adds to the ego’s sense of self. All those awful people out there.
The victim identity is often a memory which becomes incorporated into a sense of self: me the victim of that person/those people. This enhances ego because by being a victim we feel superior to others, not only to those who inflicted suffering on us, but we feel superior to anyone else who is not as much of a victim as we are. It’s an unconscious process.
When a significant part of our identity is that we are a victim, the implication is that we remain a victim.
There isn’t much that we can do because they’ve made us into a victim.
But the reality is that our ego has made ourself into a victim.
What can we do now?
You’re obviously morally superior, to everyone who is less of a victim than you, but you condemn yourself almost to powerlessness with any kind of victim mentality.
However, the reality is that we can transcend what was done to us; we can overcome the effect of it; we can go beyond it; we have the power to go beyond the abuse that was done to us. And every human being has that power.
But you can never discover that power if you’re trapped in a victim identity.
The power to transcend, to go beyond what was done to you, not to be held back by what was done to you, on an individual level or collectively, the power to go beyond it is yours.
You do not have this power as long as you remain trapped in a victim identity because the ego does not want to let go of being a victim.
Once something has been incorporated into the ego, the ego does not want to let go. It becomes part of you, it is precious to you.
When we become aware of this ego identification, we can let go of it. We can choose to step into our power and cultivate the capacity to ease suffering both within ourselves and in others.
~
The truth of my own experience is that I have found letting go of a ‘victim identity’ to be one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I write about one example of this from my life in THE BOOK, in Chapter 17. The Bhagavad Gita and Healing, New Hampshire, May 2013, which I have temporarily moved out from behind the paywall. (You may want to skip to half way down the post to where Chapter 17 actually begins.)
I know I’m not alone in experiencing how writing about traumatic events leads to healing —Louise Deslavo’s lovely book, Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives, discusses this in depth.
I’m also present on this Substack of The Rising of the Divine Feminine to listen and respond to this beautiful, growing and evolving community of readers and writers if you’d care to share. I’m listening.
And thanks for reading!🥰✨🌟💖🙏🕊
Great read Camilla, I really enjoyed it.
Also, I’m a big fan of Eckhart Tolle. ‘Ecky’ as you called him (hilarious by the way), was my first bridge into anything spiritual. I still remember reading one of his books in bed and a particularly line of his hitting me so hard that I sat up and was like “wow”.